Entertainment in Turkey
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Café Meşale
Meşale, located in a sunken courtyard behind the Blue Mosque, is a tourist trap par excellence, but we still love it. Generations of backpackers have joined locals in claiming one of its cushioned benches under coloured lights and enjoying a tea and nargileh. There’s sporadic live Turkish music in the evening and a dervish performance at 7.30pm and 9.30pm.
reviewed
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Love Dance Point
Going into its second decade, Love DP is easily the most Europhile of the local gay venues, hosting gay musical icons and international circuit parties. Hard-cutting techno is thrown in with gay anthems and Turkish pop. This place attracts the well-travelled and the un-impressionable, as well as some straight hipsters from nearby Nişantaşı.
reviewed
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Araf
Grungy English teachers, Erasmus exchange students and Turkish language students have long claimed this as their favoured destination, shaking their booties to the in-house gypsy band and swilling the cheapest club beer around (a mere TL5). To avoid the locals’ weekend mating madness and capacity crowds, go on Tuesday or Wednesday.
reviewed
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Türk Ocağı Kültür Ve Sanat Merkezı Iktisadi Işletmesı Çay Bahçesi
Tucked into the rear right-hand corner of a shady courtyard filled with Ottoman tombs, this enormously popular tea garden is a perfect place to escape the crowds and relax over a çay and nargileh. You can even score a cheap and tasty gözleme (Turkish crepe filled with cheese, spinach or potato) here.
reviewed
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Hideaway Cafe & Bar
Well named, this enchanting cafe-garden is accessible from the street via a secret doorway opposite Noel Baba Cafe. Turkish breakfast (TL17.50) and Sunday brunch is offered, as well as snacks and cakes.
reviewed
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Leb-I Derya Richmond
This sleek younger sister of perennial favourite Leb-i Derya is more restrained and decidedly more chic than her big sis. Fortunately there’s no threat of sibling rivalry as the crowd here is older and more cashed-up. The views from the huge windows are just as fab.
reviewed
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Bigudi Cafe Lesbian Pub/Club
The pub admits gay men, but the arty terrace club is mainly frequented by lipstick lesbians and is resolutely off-limits to non-females. The rationale for the barrier is self-defence, which hints at this country’s lesbian state of affairs: invisible, often not by choice.
reviewed
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Hi-Jazz Bar
This mellow little bar round the corner from Chez Evy has canned (and sometimes live) jazz. It's very friendly and cosy but with no outside space – not one for the height of summer.
reviewed
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Pink Bistro Café
The oldest drinking establishment in Selçuk, it's called a café, looks like a pub, but functions as a bar-cum nightclub. Ask Mesut, the bar tender, to demonstrate some of his famous magic tricks.
reviewed
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Mavi Bar
Conveniently sited at the far end of the main square, the Mavi's permanently packed with people - it was Kaş' favourite when we visited. It plays a good mix of music and has tables outside.
reviewed
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Queen Bar
Popular with travellers and locals alike, this place has a lively dance floor on the 1st floor and a more sedentary bar on the second. The friendly DJ, Emin, encourages musical requests.
reviewed
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Şişman Efes Pub
Now this is a proper pub: wooden tables, doodling barman, music drowned out by the general hubbub and the eponymous Efes beer served in 2.5L towers (around €8) on request.
reviewed
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Mavra
Serdar-ı Ekrem Caddesi is one of the most interesting streets in Galata, full of ornate 19th-century apartment blocks, avant-garde boutiques and laid-back cafes and bars. Mavra is a bit of everything – during the day it functions as a cafe, serving excellent sandwiches and pastries (the poğaca are excellent); at night, it reinvents itself as a hip bar that has been wholeheartedly embraced by artists, journalists and others in the creative industries. Its decor is thrift-shop chic and its shelves are full of locally designed ceramics and craft that are for sale. Nearby Building Food Lab & Apparel offers more of the same, albeit with a hard-edged minimalist aesthetic.
reviewed
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Sıra Geceleri
Nightlife in Urfa? In the City of Prophets, this may sound a contradiction in terms, but the evenings in Urfa are the hottest in eastern Anatolia, with high-octane dancing almost every night. What makes the city tick is the sıra geceleri , 'traditional nights' that are held in upscale restaurants. The best venues to check out are Beyzade Konak, Gülizar Konukevi, Pınarbaşı Konağı and Cevahir Konuk Evi. Send us the pictures!
Picture şark odası (lounges) where guests sit, eat, sing and dance. After the meal, a live band plays old favourites that keep revellers rocking and dancing to their hearts' content.
reviewed
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Necco
Recently, a new phenomenon has come to Kuşadası: the beach club. Functioning as a beach club during the day, they transform themselves by night into a restaurant, followed by a lavish nightclub-on-sea. Two such places can be found on the way to Pigeon Island. Considered the hippest (and the first on the scene) is Necco. It's very popular with the well heeled and well-dolled up.
To get here, take a dolmuş towards Kadınlar Denizi (Ladies Beach). It can drop you at the roundabout from where it's a short walk. On foot, ask the locals for the handy shortcut (about 1km from town).
reviewed
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Xlarge
This straight-friendly gay venue melds glitz with size. Occupying a converted art deco–era cinema that Atatürk was said to have habituated, it draws in both gay and straight partyphiles, who come to be dazzled by a humungous ballroom chandelier, preserved old architectural details and possibly the longest bar (under the stage) in any local venue. On the mezzanine, two supersized beds for group cavorting flank a full-service bar; one overlooks the hunky dancers or drag artists on stage. Vodka-shot (TL5) counters have been conveniently placed near people for easy refuelling.
reviewed
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Ghetto
Decor-wise, this three-storey club behind the Flower Passage (Çiçek Pasaji) combines Renaissance-style painted high ceilings with modernist touches including a long, back-illuminated bar with bottles that seem to glow in the dark. The musical program is equally interesting, comprising creative foreign or local live acts. In summer, it hosts Peymane @ Ghetto Teras (reached via a back staircase), an open-air restaurant-cum-music lounge that ‘doesn’t close until the sun is up’. Check the website for schedules and cover charges.
reviewed
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Vefa Bozacisi
This famous boza bar was established in 1875 and locals still flock here to drink the viscous tonic, which is made from water, sugar and fermented grain. The mucous-coloured beverage has a reputation for building up strength and virility – it won’t be to everyone’s taste, but the bar itself, with its blue tiles, mirrored columns, marble tables and wooden bar, is worth a visit in its own right. If the boza is too confrontational for you, the bar also serves şıra, a fermented grape juice.
reviewed
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Darüşşifa
The Darüşşifa or Bimarhane was built as a mental hospital by Ilduş Hatun, wife of the İlkhanid Sultan Olcaytu, in 1309 and may have been the first place to try to treat mental disorders with music.
The İlkhans were the successors to Ghengis Khan's Mongols, who had defeated the Anatolian Seljuks. Their architecture reflects motifs borrowed from many conquered peoples and the building is based on the plan of a Seljuk medrese. Today the building is often used for exhibitions, concerts and events.
reviewed
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Set Üstü Çay Bahçesi
Those who appreciate the ceremony of proper tea service will love this terraced tea garden overlooking Seraglio Point. Here, you can watch the ferries plying the route from Europe to Asia, while at the same time enjoying an excellent cup of tea served in a teapot and accompanied by hot water (such a relief after the fiendishly strong brews that are common in Turkey). It’s so pleasant that you may decide to stay for a lunch of a cheap köfte ekmek (meatball sandwich) or a tost (toasted cheese jaffle).
reviewed
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Barış Türkü Cafe & Disco
The Barış was the flavour of the month when we visited, and it's easy to see why. Housed in a historic mansion, this atmosphere-laden café-bar-disco-restaurant has a happening buzz and is a magnet for students of both sexes who come here to flirt, gossip, puff a nargileh, dance and listen to live bands (three times a week). If hunger beckons after swigging more than a few glasses of Efes in the basement, you can order an excellent yayla kebap (kebap with yoghurt) to restore balance to the brain.
reviewed
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Demeti
Located in a Cihangir hillside apartment with street-level entrance, this recently opened meyhane has a friendly feel and stylish decor. A display case of meze and desserts greets you as you enter and the kitchen is open, meaning that you can check out the dinner choices as you are led to your table. Reservations are a must if you want one of four tables on the terrace, which have an unimpeded Bosphorus view. Set menus are only offered for groups of six or more. There’s a live singer midweek.
reviewed
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Şark Kahvesi
The Şark’s arched ceiling betrays its former existence as part of a bazaar street; years ago some enterprising kahveci (coffee-house owner) walled up several sides and turned it into a cafe. The nicotine colour on the walls is testament to its long pedigree as a popular tea and cigarette spot for the bazaar’s stallholders. These days they have to fight for space with tourists, who love the quirky ‘flying dervish’ murals, the old photographs on the walls, and the cheap tea and coffee.
reviewed
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Sokak Café & Bar
Like its next-door neighbour, Hasanaga Restaurant (a low stone wall separates the two), every square inch of this café's back garden is covered in a delightful canopy of light-strung trees. Literally. But since Sokak is still the new kid on the block, crowds are generally light. (Might have something to do with the music being way too loud.) Otherwise, an acceptable place to kill an evening over cups of çay or, more realistically, glasses of Efes (local beer).
reviewed
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Nardis Jazz Club
Just down the hill from the Galata Tower, this venue, named after a Miles Davis track, is where the real aficionados go. Run by jazz guitarist Önder Focan and his wife Zuhal, Nardis is small but big in atmosphere. Its line-up of performers is exceptionally good; some come from the winners’ ranks of its yearly amateur contest and others are visiting international artists. Different daily performers make every visit fresh and serendipitous – book ahead.
reviewed
